New Power Rankings! (Seventh Edition)

New Power Rankings! (Seventh Edition)

 Click here for the Previous Power Rankings.  And just a quick note, if you click on a school in the power rankings list it will take you to the respective school's team page.

The Power Rankings are a weekly strength assessment of each team and generally speaking the rankings are used for the basis of predictions for the coming week as upsets rarely seem to happen.

1. Belmont Hill School (Previously: 1)

Belmont Hill pulled out a tough 8-7 victory over Nobles to essentially claim the ISL title and possibly a number 2 seed in the Class B Tournament.

2. Nobles School (3)

Although Nobles lost to Belmont Hill, they slide up one spot in the rankings because it was a much more competitive match than the Milton-Belmont Hill one.  Nobles had a convincing win over St. Paul's on Saturday 10-5.

3. Milton Academy (2)

After Milton's wins over Andover and Exeter, it looks like they might have a good enough resume to pick up the second seed in the Class A Tournament.  On the other hand, it's been a tough week publicity week for Milton after the Controversial Quotes Post.

4. Roxbury Latin School (4)

Other than New England's, Roxbury Latin only has easy matches remaining on its schedule.

5. St. Paul's School (5)

St. Paul's had a big win over Rivers on Friday by a score of 9-6.  The loss to Nobles won't matter on Selection Day when the Class B Tournament is determined because St. Paul's will be safely in.

6. Rivers School  (7)

Rivers is on pace to have its best record in the past half-decade.

7. St. George's School (8)

St. George's has a big match versus BB&N this Wednesday.

8. St. Mark's School (10)

St. Mark's beat Thayer this past week and they have a showdown with St. Seb's on Wednesday.

9. Middlesex School  (11)

Middlesex has a tough stretch coming up with matches against RL and Belmont Hill; they picked up a big win versus BB&N on Saturday.

10. Thayer Academy (12)

Thayer has the potential to pick up another win versus maybe Collins-less Governor's on Wednesday.

11. Brooks School (13)

Brooks has winnable matches this week against Middlesex, Thayer, and St. Seb's.

12. Groton School (14)

Groton beat BB&N on Wednesday but they have a tough schedule down the stretch.

13. St. Sebastian's School (15)

St. Seb's had a big win against Governor's on Friday.

14. BB&N (7)

BB&N had a rough week and badly missed a few starters in both matches.  After consecutive lopsided losses to St. Paul's, Groton and Middlesex, BB&N has slipped all the way to 14th in the power rankings.

15. Governor's Academy (9)

With Nate Collins injured this team seems to have lost its fire as Governor's dropped matches to St. Seb's, St. Paul's and St. Mark's this past week.

16.  Lawrence Academy (16)

Lawrence has won 2 sets in 11 matches this season for an average of .18 Sets Per Match.  I think I just created a new statistic right there, that could be my legacy.  I'm trying to write the most out of a "bad situation" because I haven't done much coverage of this team all year besides saying that if Lawrence had beaten Belmont Hill it would've been the biggest upset in ISL Sports History.

Tomorrow's Matches

Tomorrow's Matches

I'm not going to do my normal predictions in this post, instead I'm going to do a less formal, more opinionated post.

 

Belmont Hill vs. Nobles
Belmont Hill and Nobles have a showdown tomorrow and the winner will most likely be crowned ISL champion.  Frankly I just can't see Nobles winning this match.  I got a comment an hour ago saying that Anthony Laurencio-Twymer might not play in the match but I think that even if he plays tomorrow it won't be too close.  The only thing that Nobles has going in its favor is that the match is at home and not at Belmont Hill's indoor courts.  Belmont Hill should dominate the doubles and win 1st and 5th singles pretty easily.  I think that the only way Nobles wins this match is by taking one of the doubles matches and splitting at 2nd, 3rd and 4th singles and winning 6th singles.  It could happen, I just don't think that it will.

Projected Singles Matchups
Belmont Hill vs. Nobles
1.  Carl Reid vs. Cam Chapman
2.  Peter Yanofsky vs. Anthony Laurencio-Twymer
3.  Jack Welch vs. Camden Smith
4.  Bashiru Akinfolarin vs. Will Shames
5.  Nick Tierney vs. Unknown
6.  Sam Mcquillan vs. Will Samuels



Milton Academy should clean up in its match against non-conference opponent Phillips Exeter.  This is an important match for Class A seeding purposes.

Rivers and St. George's have a big match tomorrow and I'd say Rivers is a 3 point favorite.  A St. George's win could shake up the power rankings.

Thayer Academy and St. Mark's play tomorrow and St. Mark's is a 5 point favorite.

Expect a new version of my New England Prep Tennis Bracketology for all 3 classes to be posted in the next few days.

New England Prep Tennis Class A Bracketology

New England Prep Tennis Class A Bracketology

I already covered Class B in an earlier post and here's my take on Class A.
For last year's Class A Tournament click here.

As I compiled this list it quickly became obvious how little depth there is in Class A.  While over the past decade Class A has often had the best team in New England (better than the Class B champ) the tournament has tended to be fairly weak in comparison with Class B.  It seems that almost every year there is a clear-cut Class A favorite while in Class B it's more of a toss up with a few comparable teams.  Class A is a much smaller division with less competition to get into the tournament.  Here's my list of teams.

1.  Hotckiss School

Hotchkiss is clearly the best team in Class A this year but they could be tested by Loomis and Deerfield.  They won the Kingswood tournament and have beaten every team they've played so far except Brunswick who beat them 7-0 in a scrimmage.

2. Deerfield Academy

Deerfield boasts wins over Loomis Chaffee and Phillips Andover.  They're undefeated but they finished the Kingswood Tournament in third place behind Hotchkiss and Hopkins.

3. Milton Academy

Milton's only test so far has been against Belmont HIll and they lost 11-4.  We will see how this team stacks up against the other Class A powers.  With Noah Bragg I think this team wins Class A's with ease.

4. Loomis Chaffee School

Other than a 4-3 loss to Deerfield, the reigning Class A champion is undefeated. 

5. Phillips Andover

This team lost in the New England Class A finals last year in a match that came down to the final set.  They aren't quite as strong after graduating Trey Meyer.

6.  Taft School

Taft has lost close matches to Andover, Loomis and Hotckiss.

7.  Choate Rosemary Hall

Choate probably won't make it out of the first round this year.

8.  Kingswood-Oxford School

The 8th team is a toss up because there are a lot of mediocre teams that could be put here.

Bubble Teams:

Phillips Exeter

Groton